Following the blog special in last week's PR Week, I've come across some new PR blogs that I'm subscribing to. Ellee Seymour who was profiled in the PR Week feature and I'd not come across her blog before. It's a good read. HackFlack is a blog that talked about the PR Week feature - I found it trawling through blog searches. HackFlack says: "In 2005 I jumped across the fence to learn a new trade in PR.
This blog charts my journey from Hack to Flack." Tim benjamin was also written about in the article, and his blog's here. He has an impressive CV and blogs about some cool stuff. Lastly Manchester's PushOn is a SEO flavoured blog with some good PR content in amongst the web tinkering chat.

February 11, 2007

Today's FT carries a story on Barack Obama's social media following - in particular, the fastest-growing group ever to emerge on Facebook: "Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)". You can see the group here (Facebook membership required) and the story is on the front page on FT.com right now:

Mr Obama’s recruits there will pale in comparison with his virtual
support group of devotees who have signed up to his cause on Facebook,
the social networking site that has spread like wildfire among
college-going youth since 2003.

In
the three weeks since Mr Obama created his exploratory presidential
committee on January 16, a spontaneous online community group on
Facebook “Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)” has enlisted
244,225 members.

That makes it not only the fastest-growing
Facebook group but also perhaps the most instantaneous creation of a
political community of supporters for any presidential candidate.

February 09, 2007

"In five years, fifty percent of the content you watch on your high definition television will not be delivered by your cable or satellite provider but by a "youniverse" of publishing individuals connected to the Internet."

"Lewis PR's resident blog expert, Drew Benvie, talks to PRWeek about the blogs all PROs need to know about and why keeping abreast with just some some of the ones that matter is time well spent." argh!

February 06, 2007

Blogging here has been a little light over the past two weeks as I've been on paternity leave. Barely time to open the iBook let alone check out the news. I've had to do a bit of work too, here and there, but only today did I manage to get some time to catch up on my feeds.

The best PR story I've seen from my break (and perhaps of the last 12 months) has to be this tale of guerilla stunts and hilarious media management. Guerilla marketing firm Interference Inc has pulled off a whopper of a PR stunt in the US that has set the world's media on fire: [link] "So these two guys put some LED monster things around the city of Boston as guerrilla viral advertising for the Aqua Teen Hunger Force cartoon. This being the US they get arrested for being terrorists clearly intent on blowing up the city with their LED monster things. They then have the best post-court press conference ever, in which they insist on talking about the history of hairstyles and nothing else."

My interest in this story focuses not only on how and why the stunt became so huge (why exactly did this become reported as a bomb threat when it's reportedly been done without alarm before?) but how the story perpetuated online and how the media was managed.

What a huge stunt that's raised far more awareness for Interference Inc, Turner and ATHF than I'm sure they could ever have hoped for. And what a response to the media at that press conference. Successful result? Seems they're having to stump up $2m in compensation, so not ideal! But was the publicity for the show worth it in the end? Just to put it into perspective, the fine works out at less than a 30-second Superbowl ad.